UC Irvine scientists have discovered a cluster of galaxies in a very early stage of formation that is 11.4 billion light years from Earth – the farthest of its kind ever to be detected. These galaxies are so distant that the universe was in its infancy when their light was emitted. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

A team of astronomers looking at the universe’s distant past found nine young, unusually compact galaxies, each weighing in at 200 billion times the mass of the Sun.

These young galaxies are the equivalent of a human baby that is 20 inches long, yet weighs 180 pounds. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Recently, two groups of astronomers were able to see two classes of unique galaxies from the early universe. One group glimpsed galaxies that looked old even when the universe was young, suggesting they must have been some of the first galaxies to form after the birth of the universe. The other group found galaxies dating from the strongest burst of star formation in the universe. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Huge filaments of dark matter have been detected in a survey of thousands of distant galaxies. The discovery supports the idea that dark matter drove the formation of galaxies and larger cosmic structures and resolves a discrepancy in previous studies about how much dark matter the universe contains. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Galaxies today are struggling to clump together against the incredible repulsive power of dark energy, hints a new survey of thousands of galaxies. Measuring this anti-clumping effect puts a new arrow in the quiver of cosmologists seeking to uncover the nature of the mysterious force. picked by deepchill 2 years ago

Looking almost 11 billion years into the past, astronomers have measured the motions of stars for the first time in a very distant galaxy and clocked speeds upwards of one million miles per hour, about twice the speed of our Sun through the Milky Way. picked by AutumnLotus 4 months ago

Astronomers from SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research have discovered a new cluster of galaxies, hidden behind a previously identified cluster of galaxies. The recently exposed cosmic giant is apparently just as bright as the first group, but is six times further away. The astronomers made the discovery as part of an international team using the space telescope XMM-Newton. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Distant ­supernovas (bright dots), captured by NASA’s Hubble telescope, open new vistas into the expansion history of the early universe. As early as 9 billion years ago, a mysterious repulsive force known as dark energy is seen exerting its influence.Even weirder than dark matter—the invisible stuff constituting most of the mass of the universe—is dark energy, a myst... read full post picked by rambler 3 years ago

With the conventional theory of gravitation, based on Newton’s ideas and refined by Einstein 92 years ago, dark matter helps to explain the motion of galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, on the largest scales. Now two Canadian researchers suggest that the motion of galaxies in a distant cluster is more easily explained by a Modified Gravity (MOG) theory than by the presence of dark matter. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Astronomers have used ESO’s Very Large Telescope to measure the distribution and motions of thousands of galaxies in the distant Universe. This opens fascinating perspectives to better understand what drives the acceleration of the cosmic expansion and sheds new light on the mysterious dark energy that is thought to permeate the Universe. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

UK astronomers have developed the most sensitive infrared map of the distant universe ever produced, revealing the origins of the most massive galaxies in the cosmos. Using images obtained with the United Kingdom Infra-Red Telescope (UKIRT), astronomers combined data over a period of three years. This produced a map encompassing more than 100,000 galaxies over an area of sky four times the size of... read full post picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Anyone who has wondered what it might be like to dive into a pool of millions of distant galaxies of different shapes and colours, will enjoy the latest image released by ESO. Obtained in part with the Very Large Telescope, the image is the deepest ground-based U-band image of the Universe ever obtained. It contains more than 27 million pixels and is the result of 55 hours of observations with the... read full post picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

The orbiting X-ray telescopes XXM-Newton and Chandra have caught a pair of galaxy clusters merging into a giant cluster. The discovery adds to existing evidence that galaxy clusters can collide faster than previously thought. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Scientists don't know what dark energy is, but they observe its tugging effect, which causes the expansion of the universe to accelerate. Now they have seen this mysterious force in some of the largest known features of the cosmos, called superclusters and supervoids. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

Preliminary results from the volunteers indicate that the universe possesses the property called “handedness.” That is, most galaxies seem to be left-handed, or prefer to rotate counterclockwise when looked at from our position on the planet Earth. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

An international team of researchers led by a UC Riverside astronomer has completed the largest ever survey designed to find very distant clusters of galaxies. Named the Spitzer Adaptation of the Red-sequence Cluster Survey, "SpARCS" detects galaxy clusters using deep ground-based optical observations from the CTIO 4m and CFHT 3.6m telescopes, combined with Spitzer Space Telescope infrar... read full post picked by AutumnLotus 5 months ago

In the early 1900s, Edwin Hubble made the startling discovery that our Milky Way galaxy is not alone. It is just one of many galaxies, or "island universes," as Hubble dubbed them, swimming in the sea of space. Now, a century later, NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer is helping piece together the evolution of these cosmic species. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

A distant galaxy cluster has turned into a giant particle accelerator, spinning electrons over vast distances at high speeds. Scientists discovered this phenomenon by observing highly energetic X-rays emanating from the Ophiuchus cluster of galaxies. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Astronomers are using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to dissect one of the largest structures in the Universe as part of a quest to understand the violent lives of galaxies. Hubble is providing indirect evidence of unseen dark matter tugging on galaxies in the crowded, rough-and-tumble environment of a massive supercluster of hundreds of galaxies. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Small, ultrafaint "hobbit" galaxies recently found hovering around our Milky Way are comprised almost entirely of dark matter, a new study confirms. Dark matter is a mysterious substance scientists think accounts for most of the mass in the universe but that is invisible to current instruments. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago